Registrations of Trade Unions

In an order of serious import to Labour Unions specially in the unorganised sector Justice Ramesh Ranganathan of the AP High Court upheld the power of persons to form a Trade Union even if engaged through a contractor with a principle employer.
The judge was dealing with a writ petition filed by the VMC Employees Union questioning the action of the Labour Department in cancelling the registration of the Union on the ground that they were employees of a contractor and not of the principal employer.
Dealing with the provisions of the Trade Union Act the judge pointed out to Section 4 of the Act seven or more members may by subscribing their names may apply for registration under the Act.
Dealing further with the provisions of the Act the judge pointed out that the embargo for forming a Trade Union is that is shall not be registered unless the application for such registration is made by “not less that 7 persons as its members who are workmen engaged or employed in the establishment or industry with which it is connected”. He also took note of the fact that the Union was admittedly a registered Trade Union since September 2012. He pointed out that under Section 10 (b) of the Trade Union Act a Trade Union can attract cancellation of registration only if such registration was obtained “by fraud or mistake or that the Trade Union has ceased to exist or has wilfully and after notice from the Registrar contravened any provisions of the Act or allowed any Rule to continue in force which is inconsistent with any such provision or has rescinded any rule providing for any matter provision for which is required by Section 6 of the Act”. Spelling out yet another disqualification he said that cancellation can also happen if the registered Trade Union ceases to have requisite number of members. It was the admitted case of the government that the order cancelling registration was not upon the prescribed statutory conditions or even on the ground that it was obtained by fraud. The cancellation was on the purported ground that “registration was granted by mistake”.
Delving on a characteristically surgical analysis of the language employed in the statute Justice Ramesh Ranganathan reasoned that the State Union Act stipulates that “the workmen entitled for being registered as a trade Union, must be engaged or employed in the establishment or industry with which it is connected. The words ‘engaged’ and ‘employed’ find place in both the first and the second provisos to Section 4 (1) of the Act. No statutory provision can be so construed as to render any part thereof redundant or inapposite surplusage. If registration is to be limited in an industry it would have sufficed to use the word ‘employed’ and the usage of the word ‘engaged’ in addition thereto was not necessary, he pointed out. Applying the theory that Legislations do not suffer the vice of being verbose the judge would point out that persons need not be employed in the establishment – the VMC industries in the instant case.
Testing the right to association from a constitutional lens Justice Ramesh Ranganathan albeit in an interim order reasoned, “the right to form an association is a Fundamental Right guaranteed under Article 19 (1)(c) of the Constitution of India. The manner in which such a Fundamental Right is to be regulated is in the terms of the provisions of the Act”.
Interestingly the writ plea had yet another interesting facet to it which awaits factual adjudication. It is alleged that the order of cancellation of July 30 was antedated and passed by an officer who retired from service on July 31. What gave credence to the argument is that counsel G Vidyasagar pointed to communications received under the Right to Information Act which pointed to personal moving to the house of the retired Deputy Commissioner of Labour after his retirement. On this aspect the judge said further investigation was required.
The judgement should not only go a long way in dealing with the right of association provided for under the Trade Unions Act but could also be a warning to those officials who sometimes exhibit a tendency to overstep and thereby be overzealous and ‘pro establishment’ rather than ‘pro law’.